openSUSE OBS Can NowBuild Windows WSL Images

As Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is becoming a critical piece of Microsoft's cloud and data-center audience, openSUSE is working on technologies that help developers use distributions of their choice for WSL. Users can run the same WSL distribution that they run in the cloud or on their servers.

The core piece of openSUSE's WSL offering is the WSL appx files, which are basically zip files that contain a tarball of a Linux system (like a container) and a Windows exe file, the so called launcher.

An openSUSE blog explains (https://lizards.opensuse.org/2019/10/09/opensuse-wsl-images-in-obs/) that "building a container is something SUSE's Open Build Service (OBS) can already do fully automatic by means of Kiwi. The launcher as well as the final appx however is typically built on a Windows machine using Visual Studio by the developer."

As a result of this work, OBS can actually build the WSL appx from sources. Anyone can build their WSL distribution. However, since the files are signed by openSUSE and not Microsoft, you will need additional steps to run them on Windows 10 machines.

Sudo Vulnerability

'sudo' is one of the most useful Linux/UNIX commands, allowing users without root privileges to manage administrative tasks. However, a new vulnerability was discovered in sudo that gives users root privileges.

"When sudo is configured to allow a user to run commands as an arbitrary user via the ALL keyword in a Runas specification, it is possible to run commands as root by specifying the user ID -1 or 4294967295," according to the sudo advisory (https://www.sudo.ws/alerts/minus_1_uid.html).

The vulnerability allows users with sudo privileges to run commands as root even if the Runas specification explicitly disallows root access as long as the ALL keyword is listed first in the Runas specification.

Sudo developers have already released a patch to fix the vulnerability. Update your systems now.

Hetzner Launches New Ryzen-Based Dedicated Root Servers

Hetzner is an internet hosting company and data center operator out of Germany that provides dedicated hosting, shared web hosting, virtual private servers, managed servers, domain names, SSL certificates, storage, and cloud solutions. Recently the company announced the launch of a new line of Ryzen-based dedicated root servers that offer a significant boost in performance for customers across all of their services.

According to Tommy Giesler, Product Manager for Dedicated Root Servers at Hetzner Online, "All four servers are built to handle applications that have high multithreading requirements." He continued that "they're also great as general entry level servers for people with heavy workloads."

The new lineup consists of the AX41 and AX41-NVME, which are based on the Ryzen 5 3600 CPU (with 6 cores and 12 threads), and can be combined with either two 2TB HDDs or two 512GB NVMe SSDs. Each of those servers has 64GB of DDR4 RAM. The AX41 and AX41-NVMe start at $39 a month, with a one-time setup fee of $39. Customers can opt to upgrade the memory on those servers to ECC RAM for just $5 a month for increased data integrity.

A step up from the base models are the AX51 and AX51-NVMe. These servers are based on the Ryzen 7 3700X (with 8 cores and 16 threads), and can be combined with either two 8TB HDDs or two 1024GB NVMe SSDs. Both models include 64GB of DDR4 ECC RAM. The AX51 and AX51-NVMe are available starting at $59 a month plus a one-time setup fee of $59.

For more information visit https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/matrix-ax.